8 | MAY 4 • 2023 

PURELY COMMENTARY

O

n Tuesday, April 18, the staff 
of the Detroit Jewish News 
Foundation visited the Zekelman 
Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills. 
There were about 20 of us, including most 
of the team and their guests, many of 
whom had never been to the Center before. 
 The experience was that much more 
poignant since it took 
place on Yom HaShoah, or 
Holocaust Remembrance 
Day, the Israeli commem-
oration of the atrocities 
committed by the Nazis 
against the Jewish people 
that resulted in the death of 
more than 6 million Jews.
Our docent was Katie Chaka Parks, a 
Wayne State University doctoral candidate 
studying Modern Europe; 20th-century 
Germany; and women, gender and sexuali-
ty. Katie used her vast knowledge to custom-
ize our walk through the exhibit. She focused 
much of our tour on the importance of a free 
press and the danger to society when that 
right is replaced by censorship, propaganda 
and messages of hate. In the case of Nazi 
Germany, it also was the first step toward 
the removal of other human rights like free 
speech and the arrival of state-sponsored 
hatred, imprisonment and genocide. 
Our visit concluded with a talk by a local 
second-generation survivor named Gail 
Offen. A dynamic speaker, Gail shared her 
father and uncle’s remarkable story, surviving 
together through confinement in the Krakow 
Ghetto, imprisonment in three different con-
centration camps, their eventual liberation 
by the 11th Armored Division of the United 
States Army and, finally, reunification with 
their younger brother who also, miraculous-
ly, survived. Gail also recounted her own 
experience as the child of a survivor and how 
that has impacted her life and the lives of her 
family. We even had an unbelievably moving 
small world moment when Freda and David 
Sachs, two members of our group, realized 
they had met one of Gail’s surviving uncles at 
a dinner at the JCC in Krakow in 2019. 

The impact of our visit was profound 
for me on many levels. I have studied the 
Holocaust and have been to the Zekelman 
Center and other museums dedicated to 
that time period before. Being faced with 
the worst of humanity is always a harrow-
ing experience. But to experience the visit 
through the eyes of first-time attendees and 
to hear their sentiments after the fact was 
particularly moving. 
Three of my Jewish News colleagues said 
it best:
Ashlee Szabo: I haven’t been to the Holocast 
Center since I was about 12 or 13 when I went 
with my church youth group, and I remember 
how impactful it was for me then, so I was 
glad to experience it again as an adult. Even 
if we digest things differently in adolescence, 
the message of humanity is the same. I had 
not realized the role the media played both in 
the beginning and in the ending, and it was a 
reminder of how powerful our words can be, a 
reminder of why independent journalism is so 
important. Thank you for a day of reflection 
and remembrance.
Pam Turner: For me, being in the presence 
of all of those stolen souls is such a humbling 
experience. Knowing that humanity can be so 

cruel is always mind-boggling to me. Katie, 
our tour guide, asked a question yesterday: 
“How would you have acted during that 
time?” I can never answer that question. I 
always think to myself, “Would I have been 
as brave?” [I, as an African American,] 
sharing a history of racism, slavery, murder 
and having your history stolen from you, 
being denied the fact that the atrocity has 
happened and being told to “get over it, that 
happened a long time ago,
” can relate on a 
level that some people cannot. So, know-
ing that we, as a newspaper, play such an 
important role, that we have a responsibility 
for telling the stories of our time good and 
bad so that these kinds of atrocities don’t hap-
pen again — all I can say is that I am so hum-
bled to be a small part of that history.
Kathy Harvey-Mitton: The visit was a 
life-changing experience. It affected me in a 
way I was not fully anticipating. “Thank you” 
doesn’t even seem like enough to express my 
gratitude for yesterday’s experience with the 
best group of folks I have ever worked with. 
I want to thank the Detroit Jewish 
Foundation team for making the visit so 
meaningful and for being so vulnerable 
sharing their heartfelt sentiments about the 
experience. The Zekelman Center is not an 
easy place to visit, but it is imperative that we 
put ourselves in that place of discomfort, so 
we never forget. 
Even more critical is our responsibility as 
members of the free press. It is easy to see 
how quickly society can dissolve when free 
speech is taken away. Frighteningly, we see 
shadows of that happening today in places 
like Russia and China. The world is in a 
place of upheaval, and it is knowledge and 
remembrance that give us and our fellow 
human beings the power to make sure some-
thing so devastating does not ever happen 
again. 

Marni Raitt

Headlines from the Detroit Jewish News, 
June 16, 1942, and Dec. 4, 1942. The 
Jewish News and the Detroit Jewish 
Chronicle exposed the atrocities of Nazi 
Germany earlier than they were reported 
on in much of the mainstream media.

from the Executive Director
A Collective Remembrance

The DJNF team visits the Zekelman Holocaust Center 
to commemorate Yom HaShoah.

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